Speaking the Devil
by She-Who-Is-Not-To-Be-Psycho
Summary: Potter's weight on Draco's life has always been huge. Draconian huge. It'll be even more so with Draco's ultimate mission: the kidnapping of Harry Potter. Yet, confronted with Potter's demise, will he suffer a sudden change of mind? No spoilers
1. Prologue

**'Speaking The Devil'**  
By She-Who-Is-Not-To-Be-Psycho!   
  
  
  
Prologue  
The intoxication of Art is more apt than any other to veil the terrors of the eternal abyss.  
- Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 1867), Paris Spleen (1869)  
  
Hearing his own cold steps in some almost deserted corridor he can tell his anger is over-powering him. The tapping is fast, constant, violent. It's already hurting - the cold stone hitting his frozen feet, the winter making itself present at his veins. Louder that those of the ones at his surroundings that appear to melt in the dark silence of the dungeons.  
  
He can't tell the figures. Nor he can care.  
  
He keeps making his way though the looks surrounding him - two mass of men trying to keep pace. Draco, sometimes, would feel like ripping them off him. Sometimes it would get so unnerving to be walking, always with this two slow blokes at his sides.  
  
No. He was the slow. The one who didn't realize that the reason Crabbe and Goyle hanged out with him, why they treat him good, was because their fathers told them to. They have their many debts with his Father. Besides Father was paying them to be Draco's "friends".  
  
Yeah, that's right. When he was giving Draco his pocket money he'd handle Crabbe and Goyle some as well, because of being his 'friends' and 'friends' should be - how had he said? - 'rewarded'...  
  
'And I ate the stupid bullshit for years...'  
  
Only, Draco Malfoy never valued 'friendship' that much.  
  
'I hate my father. He fooled me. Make me look like a moron. Is it that he feels I cannot make friends on my own? I mean, I ... well, maybe I'm not such a good making-friends type - I mean - What does Potter know? Just 'cause he's a damned git it doesn't mean that I cannot make friends at all.'  
  
All the same.  
  
It tortures him. It means it. Potter's rejection of his friendship means - is the symbol - of his defeat. 'My defeat to my father.   
  
'- I cannot believe it - That's it! As Potter's still hating me, until he just... exist, I'm cursed by this true...  
  
'I cannot have a real friend.'  
  
While the cold bites his skin, bit by bit, from his fingers to his ears; a hot licking in his insides burns with a heat it reached the corners of his eyes. A pleasant, yet torturing feeling.  
And there occurres thoughts, with no end.  
  
'It's just like Voldermort, I am. Until Harry Potter lives and breathes in this earth we suffer what he represents:  
  
'Our defeat.'  
  
Draco Malfoy feels a gost of a smile creep up his face. The steps are calmer, tired of hurting themselves.   
  
'I hate to realize that Potter's of such importance in my life.'  
  


* * *

"Boggarts take a shape, but it may not be the shape of the fear. Because fear itself may not be in a tangible object. Then, it would adopt a figure that subtitutes the intention or meaning of what we fear," Professor Looney Lupin explained.  
  
'That means: It's not him of whom I'm afraid of but what he -his image- represents.'  
  
Draco had to bully most slytherins into shuting up. He could not risk the publicity and it was humilliating enough as it was.  
  
'Wasn't enough being the Golden Boy, the Boy-Who-Lived, The famous Harry Potter! You also had to be my, a Malfoy's, worst fear! You should be proud of that title.   
  
'Amazing it is, the stupid creature cannot make the difference between hate and fear! -- the many differences!' He snorts the thought, 'My worst nightmare, he is.'  
  
'I shouldn't even be bothering. Muggles and Charms homework are stupid.'  
  
Draco Malfoy isn't on the mood for fairy-tales, let alone writing them. He had been trying to write something in class but had what many would understand as a writer block. He was uninterested.  
  
Hence, he couldn't finish the assignment earlier in Charms and he got extra homework.  
  
Now in his personal working space in the Slytherin Common Room, Draco puts the quill down the parchment yet another time, he couldn't concentrate.  
  
'A fairy-tale... any fairy-tale...'  
  
But he could only think of one fairy tale.  
  
It was his favourite in his childhood. He would beg his mother to tell it again and again, the most frecuent night-time story.   
  
He had been fascinated with the legend of The Boy-Who-Lived.   
  
Draco Malfoy stares absent-minded to the blank parchement once again. The quill scratching featherly the texture. Biting his lips in self-reproach, screwing his face in concentration...  
  
Ashamed he was. For, once, Draco, when he was a naïve, stupid child, admired the boy. Fan of Harry Potter, that boy, just like him, who had defeated the Dark Lord, the most powerful wizard... No, he didn't.  
  
There's nothing special with Harry Potter.  
  


* * *

All Draco could appreciate nowdays was silence.  
  
But not Potter's.  
  
Draco's mind blank; the quill scratches the parchement in lines without form. He takes a view at his surroundings. Pansy's already finished. The heroine in her story is no other than herself; it was difficult not to snort.  
  
In the last resent encounter with Potter both only ignored and passed the other without a word. And Draco's mind had been elsewhere since then.  
  
"And then she fights a manticore -"  
  
'Because I should be the one ignoring him.'  
  
"- images move to escort the plot. Mine is a pretty girl in warrior custom -"   
  
'Like Father ordered.'  
  
Draco turns his hearing off. One would consider obvious and visible the ostility and faintness with which he heard every word Pansy spoke.  
  
He would appreciate her to go quiet.  


* * *

'Obviously Potter knows- or gives a shit about wizard history.'  
  
That's what Draco thought as he stares Harry Potter's reaction. None. One Hufflepuff, Aboot if he was not too much mistaken, had run out of the History of Magic class crying. That was quite a show.   
  
Potter should have felt something, pity her - The muggle lover.  
  
'He may be too absorbed in his own recent tragedy to acknowledge about his own ancestors, far relatives, been murdered by the hands of those same "innocent" muggles he tries to protect.   
  
'What about the victims of the Inquisition- or so many others- more modern ones- fanatic cults of mage-haters?'   
  
Draco's own mother had presence the very same sick ceremony when her grandmother was been burned alive, when she was a mere little child. That was not so far way in the past.  
  
The muggle-lovers should be considered traitors among the wizards.  
  
Harry Potter was a traitor. The worst of them.  
  
' "A sodding git like his father" would be Professor Snape's words.'  
  
Draco has heard over and over again his professor's speeches. He doesn't actually hear that much when professor Snape starts rambling now -though Draco Malfoy still admires his Head of House in many ways.  
  
Snape kept repeating one little phrase over all, like a mantra: "Just because they are Slytherins doesn't mean that something has to be wrong with them."  
  
Draco Malfoy curses under his breath. He cannot concentrate on the stupid homework. He should give it a rest.  
  


* * *

It was an old story that he heard some time in the long way past.  
  
A children book, scratched and drew all over lay forgotten about. Skipping dinner Draco went to his room to start scribbing what he remembered of it in a piece of parchment. He wants it over with, end it as soon as possible. Now he is about to give it up.  
  
An animated hologram should pop out of his work once it's finished. Yet, when it comes to find images in his head to show what the story describes he is blank again. The only image in his mind is a mirror showing bodies without head.  
  
He stares at the celling without being able to concile sleep, with his eyes sealed in that celling. On his bed, waiting hopelessly for the sleep to overtake him, he shuts his eyes once more. Almost axphiciating with a pillow, Draco tries to muffle the many things he had been thinking, things which now ring in his head like a harrassing whisper.  
  
It was still so cold at the surrounding and the thin silk didn't make much improvement. His naked feets hovering over the floor, hanging lifelessly, were aching still.  
  
Draco found himself re-reading his essay.   
  
The title read:  
  
'The Sadness and The Anger'   
  
He remembers his mother telling him the story.  
  
He never liked that story much.  
  
_It is said that, once upon a time, the sadness and the anger decided to share a bath in the same lake. The anger huskily and without further thinking washed himself and took off carrying his clothes. The sadness took his time, and when he was finished he realise something: the anger had blunder and had taken the sadness' clothes instead of his own. It was not strange though, 'cause the anger has always been blind. The sadness was not one to like going around naked so he took the anger's clothers. Since then they always wears that gear, and are often mistaken for each other._   
  
_And it's said that, if you look closely to the anger, you may found there the hidden sadness.  
_  
But he was not sad. He was not. He had no reasons to be sad... no reasons at all...  
  
And the tears started streaming down his face. And once they were there they wouldn't go away. And no, not even with the whipping all over his face. Over and over again. There was no end. It was unbearable, unnerving. It made him despair. It made him cry harder.  
  
It would take a while to stop now.  
  
  
  
By She-Who-Is-Not-To-Be-Psycho!  
(Nadia I. Rey) 

NOTES: HP-not-mine-do-not-sue. First chapter out of, well, some... This is the prologue so nothing really happens but expect some more plot in next. 'Till then Be Kind to Your Headmaster's Sock!   
  
  
  
April-November 2003


	2. Silver and Green

Preliminary note: The first thing you read was the Prologue; no plot and no important facts but to understand what's happening in Draco's head. Now the first chapter comes.   
  
  
  
**'Speaking the Devil'   
**By She-Who-Is-Not-To-Be-Psycho!  
  
  
Chapter1: Silver and Green  
  
So far as we are human, what we do must be either evil or good: so far as we do evil or good, we are human: and it is better, in a paradoxical way, to do evil than to do nothing: at least we exist.  
- T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), introduction to The Intimate Journals of Charles Baudelaire, tr. Christopher Isherwood (1930)  
  
  
It surprises him how things changed from that day on. It scared him and made him stumble on someone in his way to Transfiguration. It was infuriating that those, once there to protect him, were now bothering, for all the wrong reasons. Draco Malfoy didn't even have the time to be confused; he shoved Harry Potter aside and out of the way and returned to his track. Anxiety and exhaustion weren't things a sixteen-year-old should suffer.  
  
But if it wasn't it then why were his hands shaking?  
  
Those two seconds in front of an even more confused Harry Potter made tense every muscle, made every hair on his skin stand on end; it arise the hot- licking sensation on his stomach within the years of hatred, and for a minute it shoved the worries out of his head only to return with full force to his brain. Those only two steps behind, following him, were there again, and that notion kept Malfoy's heart running.  
  


* * *

  
"Of course I accept," said Draco Malfoy sitting lazily on the black leather couch in the Slytherin Common Room. Crabbe and Goyle had just made him bet the most ridiculous thing: To take care of Potter.  
  
"Because, you know," started Goyle again with what seemed like a hint of doubt in Draco's words, "you always tell that you are going to get Potter but you never –"  
  
"Goyle, what would you know about subtlety? No work can be done without the necessary measures." Draco took a sip of juice he made Crabbe go fetch for him, "Of course I need the time; no playing around, I need something definitive. I need a plan... But I don't think you will help me with those, will you?"  
  
That time was before the match against Gryffindor, which Draco told to every ear to be the perfect opportunity. Crabbe and Goyle cheered along with Pansy though in a more menacing way; Draco always told himself they weren't very good in articulating and showing the expression matching with their thoughts... if there were thoughts in the first place.  
  
Sure Draco tells every time he is heeding Potter, he and him only. It was one of the ways Draco Malfoy draw lines for others not to cross; to make everyone understand which were his property and his rights and Draco pretended to keep it like that. So taking care of the request wasn't more than a formal speech. But if Draco Malfoy was honest with himself something bothered him:  
  
This time even Draco would tell there was something different about the inquiry, like Crabbe and Goyle were demanding something. Of course he had lost respect for them quite a while ago, not to mention the current situation then after knowing about Father's intrusion... But Draco won't think about that.  
  
At least until that moment it was a game: 'I, Draco Malfoy, formally accept that it's my duty to get Potter once and for all.'  
  


* * *

  
Harry Potter was quickening in speed. Downer – to the right – up again... Draco feared it; he couldn't keep pace... THUD! The Bludger came just in time. Draco turned right to see Crabbe coming his way, Draco smiled proudly.  
  
Potter looked pissed so Draco has happy. He returned to the game in no time, winded but there, and then Draco got notion of Crabbe passing by; he whispered something to Draco.  
  
_When it's gonna happen?  
_  
And then Draco remembered he was supposed not to win the game, at least not second to his bet. And Draco was no coward to step out but somehow the idea didn't sound that tempting to winning the match. Mafoy rise in highs and looked for the snitch, still more concerned about the cup: What were such stupid promises to seeing Potter's defeated expression when he made him bit the dust?  
  
And so Draco continued as if nothing have happened, just before that bludger that almost got his ear –  
  
Draco tightened his grip on his broom feeling himself go down. When he turned expecting to see a Gryffindor beater instead, just behind, were Crabbe and Goyle both: none with the slight impression of trying to repel that bludger. Draco frowned at them, thinking that somehow they seem to go thicker, with one hand still clutching his head. They just stared back and Draco felt the need to turn the other way.  
  
Just seconds later a golden sparkle shine some foots down and Draco dived for it with a new excitement growing but almost immediately Goyle was there – just in front, blocking his way and Draco gave a dramatic jolt – just inches from crashing into the bloke. "What are you doing you idiot!" he called at Goyle but the last looked unbothered by it and just flew upwards again, while Crabbe committed a fault on Potter.  
  
Draco was starting to feel a new pressure upon him: he turned left and right and always, just behind was Crabbe and Goyle. Draco dived making a last effort to take Crabbe and Goyle off him. They weren't playing, just following him around and waiting for something to happen.  
  
_"What are you doing?" _Draco finally asked shouting it in the middle of the match and while a powerful wind pushed harder. Draco knew the answer and just a nod from Goyle's part confirmed it. Draco turned to sight Potter just some meters down, the wind blowing and reassuring. And Draco was scared, and Goyle and Crabbe noticed, and they approached him. Draco pushed his broom upwards feeling vertigo he was sure was unlikely in a wizard.  
  
Draco glanced just briefly around to meet Crabbe and Goyle checking on him and that was it.  
  
The spell hit Harry Potter square. He was falling unconscious to hard ground and Draco was seeing it like in slow motion – He was going to be expelled – He made to turn to the laughs to order them to catch the boy but he didn't make it to tear his mind and eyes from the limp figure falling – 30 foots – 15 foots – Draco charged downwards and next he crashed against something in mid air and stumble down to earth, painfully and escorted by an extra weight that he knew was another body. The scene faded to blankness; the last he remembered being his own heart beats running and pounding hard against his chest...  
  


* * *

  
_"Maybe he was making sure..."_  
  
Draco was dreading his return to the commons so he told Madame Pomfrey he wasn't feeling too good still. She wasn't eating it but she wasn't asking him to leave either. He didn't have news from Potter. He had been visited by Dumbledore on the other hand, still too winded he wasn't too sure what he responded or what he was asked for that matter. He was scared of it and needing reminding that he wasn't expelled from the nurse every now and then. Actually Draco himself didn't know why it mattered to him; after all he didn't have much to loose in Hogwarts... But the answers were more or less the same; Dumbledore trusted that I was trying to help Potter then, not finishing him off, and even though the issue would be discussed in the future he was not being expelled just yet.  
  
Somehow it didn't make things that much better. Draco had been about to murder the Golden Boy, of course that the Headmaster won't let it pass like that! And later he, Draco, discovered he could have been as well trying to finish Potter off: the Headmaster and other teachers had put a spell immediately under Potter to make him fall as if pushed upwards by the wind, the same when in the first year. Really not that well thought plan, his. But it was improvised after all, he wasn't thinking to murder Potter when he mounted his broom earlier – Crabbe and Goyle were; they are to blame! They made Draco do it, made him feel pushed to do it! The moment Draco got out of there...  
  
That was exactly was Draco was dreading. Never before but now he was scared, of them.  
  
  


* * *

  
Everything shook within Draco. Everything in his world turned upside down, dizzying and hurting him. That was not the behavior for wizards. He could believe it in muggles, in places from far away from his reality, but not for pureblood wizards. Not in a pureblood wizard family – It isn't like Draco lived in a pink world; he knew about things... he thought to be ready to kill, but nothing prepared him for looking at his... his acquaintances in it. Draco felt so very sick. He shook, wrapped in clothes, afraid, not having to where to run to for support. He wished his Father and Mother to be there, as childish as it sounded. No places to hide, no place to end up; all the places he could've run to; no left place to go... And as he watched sickened for that split of second how their parents do that to their sons from the crack in the wall, to Crabbe and Goyle, for failing them, Draco feared once more about it all; disbelieved how were they able to do that to their sons...  
  
That was not a behavior for wizards.  
  
And that was when everything about their relationship changed. They were never close, they were never friends, but Draco wasn't expecting them to treat him that way, to do that to Draco Malfoy. All in all they weren't mad at Draco, they weren't changed. The situation did, and not because of what their parents made of them; actually it was as if it was a natural thing. And Draco for the first time tried to talk to them and received just the opposite reaction: the next thing Draco Malfoy knew was that he was being shoved to a wall, threatened and scared like never before of them. They stated the obvious: Malfoy had cowered up, fail them, neglected his words and was to make up for it. Business like, no resentment hid under those words, yet so powerful and scaring and hurting...  
  
It shocked Malfoy because they have never talked to him like that; they have never talked as if Draco was worth no respect, as if they really didn't need him. He was the worm now, the one being watched, and he soon understood why.  
  
Draco kept his way towards Transfiguration with two pair of eyes on him; two pairs of eyes which secretively were from no other than the Dark Lord's.  
  
February 24th 2004


	3. Prologue of The Trap I

-- Note from author: I hope you liked last chappy I'm proud of myself that it wasn't that difficult like the first. Years and years I was trying to make it just the way I liked it. Next chapter the POV change, and next it will change again, but it will all come back to Draco Malfoy in the end. Still if the story gets out of topic I might move it somewhere else. This is short because, well, put it this way: I can't let too much info out so early =P. Enjoy!  
  
  
  
**'Speaking the Devil'** By She-Who-Is-Not-To-Be-Psycho!  
  
  
Chaper2: Prologue to 'The Trap'  
  
It is necessary for him who lays out a state... to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.  
- Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), Discourse upon the First Ten Books of Livy (1513-1517)  
  
  
"Oh! The agony! Is he really thinking it will make a difference? Don't you know me Dad? I think not."  
  
Vincent Crabbe looked at his side clutching his jaw in his hand. This time his father had been extra impatient, so as Goyle's – "I see yours looks better. What did you use? I could do with some potion for ailments."  
  
Goyle have been additional weird the moment he stepped inside the Boys room. Crabbe put that aside when seeing Draco leave for the bathroom, he elbowed Goyle's ribs to bring his attention; a little too harsh it seems. "Look, look who is back " He said in a sing-song voice, bringing his heads together to whisper. "You wouldn't believe he's son of a Dead Eater, though still his father is one pun of a coward too –" He laughed out loud making Malfoy jump on air which humored him even more, "Locked himself up in the bathroom, really, think he can avoid us?"  
  
"He is avoiding us," Goyle repeated making the first comment since entering.  
  
Vincent turned to him with a face that made clear he thought something was hilarious. "Yes, avoiding us, or is that you played dumb for so long that it has rubbed it on you?" He laughed again, this time dragging attention from people around and outside the room, and pushing Goyle rather hard on the arm though in a playful way. Goyle seem to be debating to smile which looked very awkward on him to say the least but Vincent didn't noticed that much, instead he was composed again, though still amused and patting Goyle's shoulder.  
  
"OK then, what you got for me?"  
  
Goyle seem to panic. "N-Nothing, sorry..."  
  
"Weren't you going to steal the food from that Ravenclaw?" Vincent Crabbe said looking pointedly at him. Goyle seem swallowing a wale when opening his mouth trying to think how to respond. Crabbe's face which looked to grow grimmer all of the sudden started to light up and before anyone could understand anything he had Goyle in a lock. "You, little cheat! You ate it all up, didn't you? I'm gonna get you for this!"  
  
Again Crabbe laughed, a menacing laugh, and the only laugh you will ever hear from him.  
  
"I will get you some next time," Goyle said apologizing.  
  
"Naah... Actually I don't mind, you know as well as you keep molesting Ravenclaw what does some cupcakes matter!" Crabbe commented leaning on his own hands on the bed. "And that won't help your fate my friend," he added as an afterthought. "Those Ravenclaws... if someone deserves dead are them; the ever so smarty ones... Big-heads. They will be the first to go, I tell you... Why are you so quiet?"  
  
Goyle didn't respond immediately but didn't look like thinking things too much before spitting it out; "I thought you were, you know, not that, err, deep."  
  
This brought quite an impressive reaction from Vincent Crabbe's part; he looked furious: "Are you joking me, that is? What, Gregor, think Daddy's fits did a little more harm to my head than always before? Or is it that you got a sudden sense of humor? Well, let me remind you: we have never been stupid. You know it! But in our case, the big trolls, bullies, we can afford to have a brain. The new responsibilities we would earn, ugh, and, again, we can afford them, hu? We aren't daddy's prize boy as princess Malfoy. So yes," – Here he made a gesture like hitting his forehead – "big words for a dummy; we are stupid to the world so to not have those responsibilities because, on the contrary, we know what's best for us, different from those Ravenclaws who keep gloating about knowledge..."  
  
His fist collapsed with his other hand in a violent gesture, a small stabbing sound escaped his mouth. Next he was hugging Goyle with an arm surrounding the other boy's shoulders in a brotherly manner. "It's much easier isn't it? We agree on that right? Now let's plan what to do with Malfoy," he said this last bit giving Goyle a last hugging.  
  
"Yes, what do we do?"  
  
"Well, check on him, won't be difficult... We will be watching his step is case he's drawn out of line again. Be His eyes. A little more pressure won't be unwarranted as it seems the teasing wasn't enough. He said he would take care of Potter, now it's his responsibility; so much talking it was about time he did the thing. We have been his clowns for too long – Time he entertains us for a change. Make no mistake; he's still the boss and we are still helping him, of course, but now he is 'in charge' and we are second to him, and so now he had to respond to Him. If he fails it will be his blunder, he will be the one punished. The perks of acting the thick ones... Enough of playing fools and enough of the childish teasing; the Dark Lord expects no less."  
  
  
  
February 25th 2004


	4. Prologue of The Trap II

**'Speaking the Devil'**  
By She-Who-Is-Not-To-Be-Psycho!  
  
  
Chapter3: Prologue to 'The Trap' II & III  
  
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.  
- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Hamlet (1960), Act 2, spoken by Hamlet  
  
_Ginny, or at least it's her at first, or someone who resembles her. And older Ginny, in the kitchen, cooking.  
I think I'm married to her.  
I go to the door. There's a young man at the door. Familiar and young.  
He goes inside as a routine, walking in a briskly fashion. He looks confident by that. Like he was a friend. He dresses formal way- or at least there's something in his images that makes me think we know from work. But then he flops to my sofa. He spreads in it and his legs are up the table. I recognize him:  
It's Draco Malfoy.  
He looks slightly older, but not much. I think he says some disgusting things- critics to our house I guess- and laughs, or at least I think he laughs. He then brings something, levitate it though air to his hands- I think it was an ashtray. I don't know if he used his wand.  
Ginny looks appalled – scared. A muggle Ginny, that's it. She's never seen magic before.  
Malfoy looks like about to laugh again at the prospect: "Doesn't she know, Potter?"  
I can tell I'm mad at him. Obviously this was not the way I wanted it to be. I'm trying to explain it to my wife:  
"I'm a wizard."  
She runs away scared. That's all I can register. She doesn't look back- I think, and disappears. I think I tried to follow her. I think it was too late. I focus back to the other one.  
I take him from the neck-lace. The smirking Malfoy sneering at me. My mind full of questions that I'm not sure I spoke up at that time. 'Why - why did he do it?'  
The smirking Malfoy changes his expression ever so slightly. His features changes like water- but there're his eyes- his eyes who still smirks. His voice is full of hate. Just before his wrath make tense his muscles. But also the look is almost resentful.  
"How does it feels like, Voldemort?"_  
  
Harry woke up with a start. Hermione was glancing at him though a chair some meters away. Ron looked dumbfounded. The session had stopped; he was no longer hypnotized, he could tell. But Harry could not bring himself to talk.  
  
Hermione spoke in an unsure manner; something not very alike her, "It's all in the tape – if you want to hear it."  
  
But Harry didn't need to: he remembered everything about the dream this time.  
  
Harry Potter is not thinking of pretty much anything all the time. Fourth months of the school term have flown by and it was like Harry was nowhere; it all had started at the start of the year after Harry had come back to the Dursley's. He just couldn't concentrate about reality and that was about to kick him hard.  
  
The proof of that was the last Quidditch match; he didn't even see that coming. But he didn't panic either or felt anything after the tug; it was like he had gone to sleep rather peacefully and hadn't got a notion of what was happening until awaking in the Hospital Wing. It came as an easy shock to awake in there, from being flying up the air at the Quidditch pitch to lay half asleep in one of the Hospital Wing beds the following morning. Ron and Hermione told him the details; Harry had problems believing it but had no problem getting absolutely furious at the thought of Malfoy doing that to him. He wasn't eating it that Malfoy saved him; sure thing Malfoy didn't helped willingly. He had his bottom on the line; expect he could not risk it, so Harry didn't really see how his cowardly self had to do with a good deed to be rewarded. He should have been expelled, no less. Indeed it was strange all the same, that Malfoy helped someone though it was quite saving from himself to start with.  
  
Harry was told to be sent a Stupefy and made fall from his broom to earth by Malfoy; that he could imagine.  
  
After supper at the Great Hall, Harry forgot all about the incident and about Malfoy. He even got to forgot all about the recurrent dream he had been having since the start of the year and that just yesterday, by means of Hermione's help, he got to remember. It was infuriating, to feel so horrible in the mornings but not be able to remember the cause of it.  
  
It was not until late that day at Potions that Harry got a reason to duel about Malfoy again.  
  
He entered the classroom along with Hermione and Ron, who were bickering as usual, when feeling something strange; a pulling deep inside. Harry was brought back to reality when Ron and Hermione's discussion had rise a level in volume and was provoking him a headache.  
  
"People, is the bickering that necessary?" Harry asked.  
  
"Yeah, Hermione, do you think you can listen to what I'm about to say before jumping to conclusions about how wrong I am?" Ron demanded.  
  
"Alright, Ron," said Hermione, "As I see you must have a very good reason to think Malfoy is planning something I beg you to go on."  
  
"Thank you," said Ron missing, purposely or not, the hint of sarcasm on Hermione's speech. "I was just wondering what that was about..." Shrugging his shoulders and finishing rather lamely. Harry was clueless and didn't even remember being part of the conversation.  
  
"What about?" Harry asked truly puzzled.  
  
"Nothing, Harry," Hermione said rolling her eyes. "Ron is bitter because he cannot prove his theory that all the people in the Slytherin House are evil."  
  
"Hermione, why don't you for a change hear me out?" Ron said angrily. "You know how is Malfoy, what's in there to trust?"  
  
"True but what's in there to worry?" Hermione answered cunningly, Harry couldn't help a chuckle. "What I'm saying is that Malfoy isn't really a threat, at least not while we are at school and with a teacher near –"  
  
"Right, because there's a teacher guarding the castle at every corner!" Ron said scathingly. "And it's not only Malfoy, it's everyone there; Crabbe, Goyle, Professor Snape –"  
  
"I'm exactly what, Mr Weasley?"  
  
Needless to say the conversation ended up there with 10 points taken from Gryffindor.  
  
The potion from that class was as difficult as every. Harry wrote down and checked his notes no less than five time not to let Snape have a reason to take points from him, not that it was evitable. But more important he did not trust his poor state of mind and clumsiness those days. Just in cue Harry realized that he forgot his knife to chop some ingredients in his night stand; he cursed mentally and turned to Hermione and Ron to ask for theirs when he remembered that for the last few weeks he was carrying Sirius' knife with him in his pocket. He reached for it but it wasn't there. Harry tried his other pockets but didn't find it and glared into space, trying to remember, when he felt a feeble playful laugh from his left. In the Slytherin part of the room was Malfoy, smirking broadly and childishly, and then Harry understood why:  
  
There, between Malfoy's thumb and middle fingers, was Sirius's knife, swinging mockingly like it was a toy trapeze. Before Harry could utter a world Snape ordered the class to start and Malfoy pocketed the knife – there was something with the way he acted that that seemed not to be related to Snape, but Harry put it aside.  
  
Harry was beyond himself; if something could bring all the rage and hatred slept within him was this, he was not going to take it from Malfoy. Before he knew it Harry was standing on his spot –  
  
"May I ask, Mr Potter, where you think you are heading to?" came an icy voice from the front row area. Harry immediately turned to Snape feeling Hermione tug on his shirt to make him sit down.  
  
Harry was about to respond to that question, to tell that Malfoy has stolen from him and he wanted it back –  
  
"Sit down, Mr Potter, and 5 more points from Gryffindor."  
  
Harry stared at Malfoy once more, furious silence followed. But Malfoy was completely ignoring him which was making Harry angrier. Harry was still feeling Hermione's urgent tugging and sensing Snape as well as everybody's eyes on him. Harry keep staring.  
  
"Yes, sir," Harry said sitting down slowly and without taking his eyes off Malfoy.  
  
Harry was going crazy for the rest of the class. He wanted it over to get the knife back; he didn't care that he spilled an acid substance on his robes, or that the potion got smokier than it should and probably completely wrong, that Snape passes by just to let everyone know how useless Harry was or that he had taken points for such a disastrous job. Actually, as the class drew to an end the tension seemed to thicken the air between, with Harry waiting for his cue and Malfoy ignoring.  
  
Finally the class was over and Harry put his things back in his bag violently and while watching intently to make sure Malfoy wouldn't run before Harry got him. As expected, Malfoy flew from there at the given chance, just when everyone else started leaving – though the commotion, Harry went after him not minding whoever was in the way.  
  
As Harry pushed his way to the exit, for a moment Harry thought he had lost Malfoy before finding him outside heading to the dungeons.  
  
"Malfoy," Harry called charging to him like a bull, Malfoy stood on his spot with his back to Harry. "Malfoy," Harry repeated, this time more dangerously.  
  
Though slowly, Malfoy turned to face him.  
  
"Give it back," said Harry loosing his temper. Malfoy gave no notice of having understood the message or of having the intention of doing so. Nor he responded any given minute; he just stood with his mouth sealed closed. Harry got ready to launch at Malfoy when recognizing Snape's voice, which came behind Harry, Snape just having stepped out of the classroom. Harry didn't turn or tear his eyes off Malfoy even with Snape demanding to know what was happening. Harry was feeling it, that any moment now, any word from that filthy mouth and he was jumping onto Malfoy and killing him. All the nerves and muscles on Harry tensed when Malfoy opened his mouth at last.  
  
He didn't say anything. Malfoy backed out and blankly turned and walked away.  
  
Harry released the breathing he didn't notice holding. All of the sudden the complete scene lighten up -- like getting wider -- and like part of him wanted himself in this place and knowing he didn't commit murder.  
  
Harry avoided giving excuses or answers and just told to want to be alone. He stared, laying in his bed, up the ceiling of the six-year boys' room at night; he had problems deciding what to do next. While he pondered the matter Ron entered the boys' room heading for the trunk and looking for something.  
  
_Talking to Hermione? _Harry considered this option giving that Hermione was one of his best friends and rather smart but there were drawbacks Harry knew so well. She would tell him to tell a teacher. This was Harry's problem now; he was getting Malfoy for this and without asking for the help of other people being the good boy. He didn't want Dumbledore knowing.  
  
"Ron," Harry started, "Malfoy's got Sirius' knife."  
  
"What?" Ron's head snapped to look at Harry.  
  
"Before Potions; it might have fallen off my pocket and next Malfoy had it," Harry said this being serious.  
  
"How do you know?" Ron asked frowning.  
  
"I saw him with it in Potions; I'm pretty sure he used it to chop the Harpies' nails. I have to get it back."  
  
"How?" Ron asked, still frowning, "what are you planning to do, telling a teacher?"  
  
"No," Harry said immediately. "I don't want help from them; it wouldn't be fair to let Malfoy have a laugh with this so easily, I want him to get what he deserves."  
  
Ron was hesitant and his eyes darted to the door before responding, "I- I don't know, mate. You could get in troubles, Malfoy is not worth it. Does Hermione know?"  
  
Harry shook his head.  
  
"Oh..." Ron said awkwardly. "I think you should tell somebody – Maybe Dumbledore –"  
  
Ron fell quiet after that; Harry didn't talk to him either.  
  
Harry went to bed that night feeling more frustrated than before; his talk with Ron hadn't come out how he expected. If truth being told Harry wasn't surprised by Ron's reaction; on the contrary Harry was mad at himself for just trying. Now Harry had two Hermione's to worry about, moreover Ron was probably turning him in to Hermione who would in change tell a teacher. Harry was not letting Malfoy get it that easy. Harry _had_ to find a way of getting to Malfoy and stealing back the knife, and he must do it before Ron got to tell Hermione. Harry forced his brain think of a way to enter the Slytherin Commons. Somehow he felt like there was something familiar with the concept and then it hit him; it was in his second year, he and Ron had entered the dungeons disguised as Crabbe and Goyle to get Malfoy to confess he was the heir of Slytherin, and Harry remembered Hermione telling the same year that she was keeping some spare of the Polyjuice Potion just in case. So Harry would have to find a way of getting hold Hermione's things and getting that back from Hermione.  
  
Harry stood and headed to the commons. Ron was there chatting with Neville and Dean while Hermione was nowhere to be seen. Harry saw Ginny talking to some fifth-year girls nearby the fireplace and went to her side, immediately the girls went quiet which Harry found uncomfortably strange.  
  
"Hi, Harry? What's the matter?" Ginny asked in an easygoing manner.  
  
"Ginny, can I talk to you? In private," Harry added eyeing Ginny's giggling friends.  
  
"Sure," she said standing. They went near the entrance to the girls' rooms. "So, what's the matter?" Ginny repeated.  
  
"Ginny, I need to ask you a favor," he said glancing at the door once and remembering the protection on the stairs to the girls' room he and Ron discovered in their fourth-year. "It's from Hermione, I need you to fetch something from her trunk but, I cannot wait for her to come back," Harry invented in the spur of the moment, "it's urgent."  
  
"Sure, what's it?" Mentally sighing of relief for having such a cooperative answer, he told, "A vial or bottle, look for something that could contain a liquid." Looking at Ginny's unconvinced expression he added; "Right. It's a potion of some sort but I'm pretty sure it must be in her trunk... what?"  
  
"You are asking me to steal from her?" she said rather confidently.  
  
"Err," Harry began, immediately correcting himself, "No! Of course not, I'm planning to return it."  
  
"Right, like you could use a potion and then throw it up to the bottle again," Ginny said cunningly. Before Harry could respond to that Ginny offers; "OK, I'll do it. If it's a potion I believe I've got an idea of where it would be kept. Wait here."  
  
With that Ginny disappeared up the ladder. Harry waited 15 minutes before Ginny reappeared downstairs but she was carrying the bottle so Harry kept to himself all demands. He thanked her and even pecked her on the cheek before taking off, just by the time Hermione was coming back though the portrait hole. Harry got a "hey!" by Ginny's part but other than that he managed out and though the corridors fine.  
  
Finally Harry was there, in front of the portrait leading to the Slytherin Common Rooms he remembered fairly well. He waited behind a suit of amour for someone to enter or exit. The first Slytherin leaving was Gregory Goyle, one of Malfoy's cronies, and going Harry's way – Harry realized: he had been so stupid to forget to take someone's hairs for the potion! (He didn't believe Hermione to have that set for him.) So when Goyle passed his side Harry stunned him and hid him behind the amour-suit asleep. Just then he saw someone coming out and Harry saw his chance: he took a handful of Goyle's hairs, threw it in the potion, called immediately "wait for me" and headed to the door looking down. He realized to take his glasses just in time and make sure the potion to be having entire effect on him before turning to the student.  
  
"Sorry, I didn't remembered the password," Harry said. The student watched Harry quite strangely but let him go though. Harry supposed it was strange on Goyle to be so, umh, cheerful... or to even think at all. The people around staring immediately turned another way whenever Harry caught their eyes. Feeling slightly too tight on the stomach and neck Goyle was seen following the first boy to go upstairs. He didn't have a choice but to look in each and every door looking for his room. Harry was starting to think this was not such a good idea while still furious and determined it getting it over with. It was then when he entered the right room and found Malfoy sitting on his bed reading something.  
  
However, the moment Malfoy spotted Harry, now looking like Goyle, he got the most unusual reaction: Malfoy put the book away and sprinted to the bathroom as if being scared. Just then someone else appeared behind Harry: Crabbe, but a cheerful Crabbe. Actually Harry was so amazed and bewildered by the thing in front of his eyes that he literally plopped to the bed besides him. It was then that Harry noticed that his pants were a little too short for him. Of course, he was in Goyle's body now, nothing would fit! Harry hoped Crabbe wouldn't notice while he slumped at Goyle's – Harry's – side.  
  
By the sound of it Harry could tell Goyle and Crabbe were close but he got zero of what Crabbe was talking about, until he was brought back to reaction from his dizzying by Crabbe's question:  
  
"So, what did you get me?"  
  
Still Harry snaked out of it by sheer luck (apparently he, Goyle, was supposed to steal a Ravenclaw's lunch just before) but it was what followed that caught Harry's attention, when Crabbe went back to Malfoy. Harry stared and listened intently each and every of Crabbe's words. He didn't look like a thick-head at all, on the contrary; he was not buying Malfoy's act and even were putting him under pressure to make him get Harry, him, and otherwise they are getting Malfoy. The last of Crabbe's speech send shivers down Harry's spine; the easiness with which Crabbe talked about Voldemort's orders and of torturing Malfoy, laughing at the idea coldly:  
  
"He's always telling how he's gonna get Potter, so we are just helping him prove his word. It's his task; the Dark Lord wants it that way."  
  
Harry returned to his room later, exhausted of pretending and being dangerously on the verge of being discovered. He had no problems passing thought his Gryffindor companions and slumping in his bed he replayed the conversation in his head. Malfoy situation was one mess of a life, Harry felt stressed just to think about it. He had problems sleeping that night, his last thought being; So, Malfoy was being proved, what did he care? That night he had one of those forgettable nightmares.  
  
  
February 27th to March 4th.

extra-note: The reason why Harry was looked strangely by that Slytherin student at the entrance of the Common Room was because he was still wearing a Gryffindor uniform that, yes, was several sizes too short for him. As you see Harry isn't that good with details as Hermione Well, let's give it to him that he didn't have much time to plan it, plus he's being extra-distracted.


End file.
